


To Remember and to Never Forget

by Anarchy-Schmanarchy (Murder_Schmurder)



Series: Ink like tracks in your skin [3]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Blood, Gen, Needles, Tattoo AU, discussion of self-harm, discussion of tattoos as self-harm, discussions of tattooing, i guess?, medical discussions?, mention of past injuries, no actual self-harm shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29594481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murder_Schmurder/pseuds/Anarchy-Schmanarchy
Summary: After that, Ranboo keeps asking. Not often, and never when they’re busy with something else - but they keep coming, modest and unassuming but unavoidable. Like the kid himself.Ranboo learns that Philza has tattoos. Ranboo has Questions. Philza answers, except for the most important one. Not until he can't avoid it anymore. They also bond over stars, snow, and chest sorting. Things are good.
Relationships: Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Ink like tracks in your skin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169045
Comments: 15
Kudos: 310





	To Remember and to Never Forget

**Author's Note:**

> I found this hard to tag for so I'm putting it here as well: This fic has graphic descriptions of the tattooing process and non-graphic discussion of the ways tattooing can be used as self-harm. No actual self-harm occurs, but you know. Stay Safe. 
> 
> In other news, boreal boys go brrrrrrr
> 
> EDIT: added some lil bits of characterisation and lore here and there, fixed some spelling errors. Enjoy :D

Philza forgets, sometimes, that he and Techno have some unusual hobbies.

Like - he knows that they’re unusual to start with, living away from everyone else, only showing up to cause chaos on occasion. He knows that the way chat talks to both of them, an endless chatter of blood and death and emotion in the back of their head, is strange. 

But this was a regular, calm afternoon. He’s sitting on a chest, carefully needling into the flurry of snowflakes cascading down his left leg, watching with half an eye as Techno raises the needle to the pinched skin between his eyes. He’d gotten piercings like this before, but Philza still wants to keep an extra eye on it. 

That’s about the point where Ranboo opens the door, and Philza realizes in a second how strange they must look.

“Holy shit!” Ranboo yells in the next moment. Techno doesn’t startle, because he is a fucking professional, but he does put the needle down very quickly. Blood starts pouring from the half-finished wound between his eyes, and he looks rather put out about it.

“What,” he says, voice clipped, and Philza winces as Ranboo shies back. 

“I’m - I’m sorry, I just -there’s needles! and blood everywhere!” he says, hands fluttering with anxiety in Philza’s general direction. Philza wordlessly picks up the wet cloth he’s been using and dabs at the blue ink until it’s gone, showing the slightly raised lines of the new snowflakes adorning his calf. Techno pushes a rag against the failed piercing, mopping up the blood with little care.

There is a long, pregnant pause.

“You have tattoos?!” Ranboo exclaims, looking somehow pale despite all evidence pointing towards an inability to do so, and Philza realizes this will not, in fact, be a calm evening.

\-------------

Techno never gets around to that piercing - Ranboo’s careful questions keep him occupied, even when they’re technically aimed at Philza. Most questions about Philza’s past is also a question about Techno’s past, however, so he gets pulled in whether he likes it or not.

Three questions in, Techno is telling the story of how they took over the world (however briefly) with broad gestures and a sort of shine in his eyes that Philza had missed, these last few weeks. The man always thrived off a captive audience. 

Philza doesn’t mind. He can keep working on his snowflakes even as Ranboo watches, transfixed, while Techno talks about the Saint-Malo trials as if it had happened yesterday.

“And then they forbade us from taking over the world again,” he finished, and Ranboo laughs politely. He’s a good kid, if a bit jittery, and still looking intently on Philza’s hand moving steadily.

“Was that the first one?” he asks, because of course the first tattoo he’d asked about was the antarctic empire logo close and safe to Philza’s wrist. Philza shakes his head with a laugh. 

  
“No, not at all. I started way back, when I was still living on my own, in an isolated world.”

“A proper shut-in,” Techno comments, and Philza pulls a face at him before continuing.

“Do you want to see it?” he asks, and Ranboo shakes his head immediately.

“Oh, I don’t want to bother you - “ Philza has already rolled up his sleeve on his right arm, and Ranboo goes quiet immediately, eyes rowing over the motley collection of images and colors. Philza drags an ink-stained finger over the wonky smiley-face on the inside of his upper arm with a fond smile.

“He’s first. and then She,” he continues to the next, equally wonky smile. Ranboo blinks.

“They’re very…” he trails off. Philza laughs.

“Shit? Yeah mate, it was the first time I did it. Used a sewing needle and thread dipped in squid ink.” 

Ranboo shudders delicately, and even Techno winces slightly.

“Phil, that’s so unsanitary,” Techno whines, and Philza shrugs. 

“I got better stuff, now. Not like tattoo needles take much effort, once you know how to make them.”

Ranboo is still looking at the little smiley face, head tilted, eyes tracing over the hodge-podge of other images and patterns that cover his right arm.

“Did you - never get anyone to do it? like, professionally?” he asks, and Philza winces.

“Nah mate, I’m being safe,” he says, and he knows the argument that’s going to start up - but Ranboo shakes his head. 

  
“No, of course, I’m just… I’d never be able to do it on myself,” he laughs awkwardly. “I’m just… impressed. It’s important, yeah?” 

Philza closes his mouth and shrugs, ignoring the significant look Techno is giving him. 

“It’s… more of a hobby, than anything,” Philza says. “Less about the end result, more about the action, you know?” Ranboo nods.

“Memories in your skin,” Ranboo mutters under his breath and he sounds so _goddamn fragile_ and oh fuck, Philza wants out of this conversation right now.

“Techno’s the same, with his piercings.” Quick, shift that inquisitive look, that recognising tilt to his head to someone else.

Techno just snorts. He knows exactly what Philza’s doing, but he banters back, because he’s a good friend and doesn’t question it when Philza no longer has words.

“Excuse you, I care for the end result, thank you very much,” he argues, but waves Ranboo over. “You actually interrupted me trying to get this bridge piercing done.” 

“Bridge piercing?” Ranboo says, somewhere between horrified and curious, and Techno laughs.

\-------------

After that, Ranboo keeps asking. Not often, and never when they’re busy with something else - but they keep coming, modest and unassuming but unavoidable. Like the kid himself. 

\-------------

“Have you made them all yourself?” he asks one day by the turtle farm, and now Philza can push past the instinctive prickles that question gives him and show Ranboo the tiny plus sign nestled by the empire flag, the one he more or less forced Techno to make. The one whose twin Techno draws on his own wrist, every day, without fail. 

\-------------

“Where do you get the ink?”he asks as they’re walking through the nether towards the greater SMP, and Philza shows him the store he frequents - a little hole in the wall among the labyrinthine streets. Philza can make his own ink, of course, but he likes the consistent quality and the option of colors. While Ranboo coos over the selection of piercings, Philza buys a container of brilliant white ink and leaves it among his collection. He very carefully does not think further on it.

\-------------

“How many do you have?” he asks, helping Philza sort their chests (he doesn’t mind sorting them, he just refuses to let Philza touch his own with a cheerful lack of care that Philza can almost appreciate). It’s a calm day - Philza’s knees are acting up, so he’s staying inside where there’s a warm fire and his cane doesn’t sink into the snowdrifts. 

Philza laughs for a solid minute and pulls up his sleeve again, showing where the dragon’s fire bleeds into the slitted heart wrapped in the vines that grow over an old scar, all surrounded in stars and symbols and lines and careful dotwork. 

“It’s like a notebook, when I’m bored,” he says. “Long guardshifts or boring meetings or slow travel. It all blends together after a while.” 

Ranboo just nods, eyes wide, something like longing in his eyes, and Philza shoves a pile of wool into his face just to distract him from - whatever is going through his head.

\-------------

“But like, how do you do it?” He asks, squatting down to watch Philza in front of the fire one evening. Philza just holds out the needle.

“You want to try?” he says, and is not surprised (but slightly disappointed, to his consternation) when Ranboo’s eyes widen and he falls over backwards, hands waving anxiously.

“No no no,” he laughs, “No, I’d mess it up, I couldn’t -”

“Mate,” Philza cuts in gently. “You’ve seen my first attempts. You couldn’t mess up worse if you tried.” 

And it’s not even him trying to be kind, is the thing - Philza finds a startling surety in himself that Ranboo would be careful, hands sure, patient enough to sit bent over a piece for hours just like he does with his journal or his maps. 

He carefully does not think of the designs hidden at the back of his notebook, the ones he want in places he can’t reach himself.

“I don’t - I couldn’t - “ Ranboo is floundering, voice edging into panic, now, and Philza puts the needle down carefully and reaches out his hand, putting it on Ranboo’s fluttering hands and pushing down gently.

“You don’t gotta do anything, mate,” he says, more patient than he feels. “But there’s ways to practice without actually using anyone’s skin, if you want.” 

Ranboo stills.

“There is?” He says carefully, and Philza laughs. “Course, mate. I didn’t do all my practice on myself. I’ll show you.” 

So Philza shows him to tie leather down tight enough to give resistance and digs out a pumpkin from his snowed-over farm to practice on, and Ranboo takes to it with the same dedication he shows everything.

“Getting an apprentice, huh?” Techno teases when he sees it, soft despite the knowing look in his eyes. Philza rolls his eyes.

“He was asking too many questions. Figured a practical demonstration might help.”

“I believe you,” Techno says, obviously not believing him. “And this has nothing to do with that white ink design you’ve been working on?”

“Nothing at all,” Philza says cheerfully and kicks him in the knee. Techno kicks back, gently, and they’re wrestling in the snow before long until they’re both cold and wet and aching. Philza is going to regret this later, but right now he’s sparking with happiness and competition and it’s a beautiful day, really. 

\-------------

“How do you know you’re getting the dye deep enough?” Ranboo asks one day, when they’re waiting for dinner to finish and Philza is fiddling with a tear in his cloak. It’s been a few weeks since Ranboo asked a question. 

Philza doesn’t mind - he’s lost that shining longing in his eyes, or most of it, at least, and he’s a lot easier to hang out with like that. He’s been talking to Techno, as well, a sparkling emerald dangling from one pointed ear that Philza doesn’t think he knows the importance of. It’s strange, for Techno to have attached himself to Ranboo like that - it’s not a claim he makes easily, and Ranboo seems to carry it with bemused confusion. They’ve gone on a roadtrip to a mansion, roasted apples together, they’ve even sparred a little. Ranboo is good at using his height to his advantage, but with enough pressure he stumbles and flinches. They’re working on it. 

Ranboo seems to take his pause as an invitation to expand on the subject. 

“I’ve been reading, some, and it keeps saying how important it is to get it at the right spot in the skin. How do you do it?” 

Philza shrugs, tries to put it into words.

“It’s like… you kind of feel it, in the needle? I’ll show you - without ink,” he laughs, seeing Ranboo tense up just the slightest bit. “I can handle some pain, don’t worry.”

Ranboo still looks hesitant, but nowhere near the panic of a few months back. Philza takes that as a yes and digs his needle kit out from his bag. 

A few minutes later they’re sitting in the middle of the floor, Ranboo hunched and watching intently as Philza pricks into his skin with a clean, ink-less needle.   
  
“Like so, you have to sort of - get the sense of it. This one is too deep,” he points to where a dot of blood wells up, smarting slightly. “You just want like… redness, not actual blood.” He does it a few more times. “I can show it on your skin? it’s really hard to explain.”

Ranboo hesitates for only a moment before he’s holding out an arm. It’s the pale white one, and Philza talks casually as he disinfects it and grabs a new needle.

“You’ll be able to feel it in your arm. I’ll do a few, and then you help me, okay?” Ranboo just nods, and Philza sets the needle over his arm.

  
“Ready?” he says.

“Yeah,” Ranboo croaks out, and Philza sinks the needle in, feeling for that slight resistance to break before he pulls the needle back out. a tiny dot of - blue blood. Huh. He keeps his eyes on Ranboo’s face, making sure he’s not about to - pass out or something. People get weird about this. He’s seen hardened warriors faint over the smallest bit of inking, and demure nobles who sit through large and gory pieces without complaints. Ranboo does neither - he hisses slightly at the pain, but his eyes are bright and curious.

“Again? I want to get a feel for it,” he asks, and Philza goes again. Not long after, he hands the needle over to Ranboo. He’s safe and careful and Philza bites his tongue on the questions, why he’s so hesitant, why he so clearly wants but can’t do it.

He thinks he knows the answers. It’s not a conversation he’s interested in having, right now. 

But... maybe one day. One day soon.

So they sit together instead, in the too-cramped shack, and Philza can’t help but enjoy it.

\-------------

“Do you know what you’re gonna tattoo next?” Ranboo asks the very next day as they’re shovelling snow off the shack’s roof. Philza pauses, leaning on his shovel to rest, thinking for a moment.

“Well,” he says, weighing his words. “I do have this one design I’ve been working on. It’s just…” he pauses, and Ranboo tilts his head. Philza knows he’s not usually hesitant about anything when it comes to tattoos - he suspects it’s his candidness that had let Ranboo be comfortable enough to spend all of yesterday evening sticking a needle into Philza’s skin repeatedly until he’d gotten the hang of it. 

And that’s the thing, isn’t it?

“I can’t do it on myself,” he says, finally, watching Ranboo very carefully for his reactions. “It should go on my back, below the wings. Can’t reach,” he shrugs, aiming for casual and hoping he doesn’t fall short.

He doesn’t want to outright ask Ranboo, is the thing. He’s spent a lot of time with Ranboo these last few weeks. He’s sharp and witty and clever, but he’s also the biggest pushover Philza has ever seen when push comes to shove.

Philza is many things, but he’s not a fucking tyrant (except when it’s funny, of course). If Ranboo doesn’t want to do it, he’s not going to -

“Could I - I mean, if you need someone to help you. I’m here. “

Well. Color him surprised. He lifts the shovel to throw another heft of snow off the roof. Ranboo looks so fucking earnest, he can’t help but tease.

  
“Sure, mate. I’ll get my needles, then?”

Ranboo’s terrified splutters turn into annoyed noises (that sound entirely too much like Techno’s) when Philza starts laughing, and Philza doesn’t even resist when Ranboo shoves him off into the large pile of snow they’ve managed to create. It’s soft, almost pillowy, and not even Philza’s aching bones can complain much.

“You’re secretly evil,” Ranboo accuses jovially from the roof, tail lashing behind him.

“Wasn’t a secret,” Techno says, walking sedately over from the cabin. “You’re just slow on the uptake, Ranboo. What’d he do this time?” 

“Nothing to worry about,” Philza says, grabbing Techno’s offered hand to struggle out of the snow pile. Wings made navigating snow difficult sometime. “We’re just bonding.” 

Techno immediately drops him back into the snow. 

“Hey, that’s my main character protege, find your own!” 

\-------------

“Are you comfortable?” Ranboo asks for the sixth time.

“I’m comfortable,” Philza responds, with slightly less patience than the fifth time. Ranboo winces, and Philza is beginning to regret asking him for help. 

But he’s wanted to get this design inked for months, and Ranboo, despite his nerves, is looking… excited. Philza is laid out on pillows in front of the fire, wings awkwardly resting against the walls and chests to make sure Ranboo can see what he’s doing. Techno’s cabin is entirely too small for two fuck-off giant hybrids and Philza’s wings, but none of them are about to change it, no matter how much Philza grumbles about picking up everything his wings knocks over. It’s crowded with them spread like this, with Ranboo as a warm weight across his legs to get the best angle. 

“Alright then,” Ranboo says, finally. “I think I’m ready to get started, then.” 

Philza has walked him through the process of cleaning and sterilizing the tools, his hands, and Philza’s skin - made only slightly difficult by the downy feathers that grow along his skin and the gnarled scar tissue that surrounds the area where the wings connect. Ranboo had known how to do it already, of course, but - well. It was a long time since Philza entrusted his skin to someone else. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” Philza gently encourages when Ranboo hesitates. No matter how ready he is, the first poke still startles him - he suppresses the flinch, but he can’t help the little exhale of air. Ranboo, to his credit, removes the needle with calm and steady hands before freaking out.

“Are you okay? that wasn’t too -”

“It’s fine, Ranboo. It hurts, but that’s sort of inevitable,” he laughs, and Ranboo responds with a nervous laugh of his own. Still, another poke follows, and another.

“Just… don’t want you to have to be in more pain than necessary,” Ranboo mutters, and Philza is glad that his smile is hidden by the angle and the pillows.  
  
“I can handle it,” he says, because he can. He’s had so, so, _so_ much worse. 

“Even so,” Ranboo replies, and there’s not really anything he can say to that, is there?

For a few minutes, there’s nothing but the clear sound of metal against glass every time Ranboo refills the needle. Philza zones out slightly, anchoring himself to the steady prick of the needle and letting himself relax.

That calm is shattered as Ranboo begins speaking.

“Philza… I’ve been meaning to ask…”

“Another one?” Philza groans, and Ranboo laughs obligingly. 

“Yeah, another one. Only if you’re okay with it.”

“Shoot,” Philza says, dropping his head into the pillows.

“How do you know when to get a tattoo - how do you - How do I know I’m ready?” 

“There’s no one point, mate. You just start.” He said, watching the fire flicker lazily. 

“No, not that.” Ranboo’s voice sounds - tense. “How do I know it’s _right?”_

Uh oh.

Philza had managed to avoid this conversation for four months and it’s brought up now when he cannot escape. 

  
If he’d thought Ranboo capable of it, he’d say it was planned.

Ranboo keeps talking as Philza berates himself for getting trapped like this, only tuning back in when the steady prick of the needle stops.

“-and I don’t know what I want to remember, but I should remember everything, and - “

“Ranboo,” Philza says, voice even. “Shut up and breathe. That ink won’t magically turn into a tattoo if you just talk at it.” 

It’s not an order, not quite, but Ranboo does indeed shut up and breathe, slow and measured things that Philza could hear. A few moments later, the pricking picks up again.

Philza takes a deep, even breath himself, trying to put his thoughts into words.

“Tattoos can be many things,” he starts. “and if you start putting meaning into every single one of them, you’re never gonna be able to get one down. It’s okay to have them just because they’re pretty.” 

“But I want to remember,” Ranboo argues, and although his hands are steady he sounds near tears.

Fuck him, Philza hates this.

“Ranboo, tattoos won’t fix your memory issues,” he says, finally, not unkindly. By the hitch in Ranboo’s breath he knows he’s hit the nail on the head.

Fuck, he does not want to have this conversation. He knows it has to happen, and he knows he’s the only one who can do it. That does not mean he has to like it. 

“Putting something on your body doesn’t just mean remembering it, Ranboo. It will always be _there_.” He pauses, trying to word the next bit right. “Do you want to never forget?”

“I want to remember,” Ranboo repeats, stubbornly, and Philza swears into his pillow before he lifts his head again. 

“Alright, let’s try again.” He sighs. “You know, something people always ask is whether I regret any of my tattoos. You never asked that.” 

“That’s - rude?” Ranboo says, clearly confused about the change in topic, and Philza chuckles.

“Yes, but it’s not like I give them the actual answer. Do you want to know the actual answer, Ranboo?”

“...yes.” 

“It was after I lost my second life,” Philza says, voice even. It’s a memory that had once hurt, almost unbearably, but now it just gave him a bittersweet taste in the back of his mouth, like honeyed tea. “I’d survived entirely on my own in an isolated world, for five years - only to get done in by a baby zombie.” 

“I heard about that,” Ranboo says quietly. “That must have sucked.”

“It did!” Philza says cheerfully. “Of course, it set me on the path to meeting Techno, so I can’t be too upset about it in hindsight. But at that point, I was furious.” 

More than that - he’d felt sad, guilty, grieving over a home he’d never be able to return to, and so, so angry at himself.

“So I gave myself a tattoo. A heart, a life-heart, infected like a damn zombie.” It hadn’t been bigger than his thumbnail, but it had felt like the size of his palm - branding his failure into his skin.

“I wanted to remember, to never forget how I’d failed. Do you know what that did to me, Ranboo?”

“It was… bad?” Ranboo says, and there is something like apprehension in his voice. Philza nods, voice too cheerful as he speaks because he’s over this, damnit, he is, and pretending otherwise will just pull him into a spiral of upset he has no interest in entertaining tonight.

“Fucked me right up! When I should have been letting myself be sad n shit, when I should have been looking for ways forward, I kept getting dragged down by the sight of that heart. Reminding me of how I’d fucked up. Almost tore my own skin off, I was so angry at myself, and every time I saw it, it reminded me. But it didn’t help me feel better. I just got stuck in that anger. It hurt me, Ranboo. I hurt myself with it.” 

Silence settles between them, heavy and foreboding. The pricks continue, though, which Philza takes to mean that Ranboo is thinking about his words. His hunch is confirmed when Ranboo speaks up again with another soft question.

“What… did you do about it?”

“I covered it up,” Philza says. “Wore an armband. Once it had faded... “ He lifts his hand, turning it and showing off the band of the Antarctic Empire again. “I covered it. Permanently. Best decision I’ve made.” 

Ranboo doesn’t reply, and for another few minutes there is only the sound of metal on glass again.

“Then… how _do_ you know what to choose?” He asks, finally, and Philza sigh.

“I don’t know, mate. You know better than me, which ones hurt and which ones don’t. Just… it’s more than just remembering. It means committing to never fucking forgetting. Things soften over time, usually, and gain new meaning, but for someone like you…”

He trails off. Ranboo sighs this time, dark humor lacing a tired laugh.

“Someone like me, who forgets where he is half the time, might not have time for it to soften?” 

“I don’t want you to have to relive something awful every time you look at yourself,” Philza says, and he doesn’t know when so much compassion had seeped into his voice. “I like tattoos. I don’t want anyone using it to hurt themselves, however unintentional. Especially not you. You’re a good egg, Ranboo,” he says, just to hear Ranboo give a flustered sort of laugh that means he’s rubbing the back of his head with his free hand.

“Thanks,” Ranboo says, finally. He hasn’t stopped the needlework this whole time, and Philza really hopes he has listened. He has potential, and Philza would hate to see him hurt himself, especially with something that Philza had taught him. 

“I should be thanking you, mate. Can’t wait to see how the design comes out,” he says, and the mood shifts into something lighter as Ranboo laughs for real.

“Don’t say that til I’m finished. Maybe I made it into a pretty pink bow instead.”

“As long as the lines are clean I could not care less.”

(The tattoo comes out beautifully. The dots aren’t quite symmetrical and some of the lines bend awkwardly against the scar tissue, but the colors are clean and Ranboo looks at it with a sort of quiet pride. His hands aren’t shaking in the slightest as he puts the thin film over it, and Philza doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline or something else that makes it so that he can’t stop smiling.)

  
  
\-------------

“Hey Philza, what are you up to today?” 

“Just checking over the bee farm. Some planks splintered from the cold, I gotta replace them.” Philza’s words are on autopilot - his eyes and mind are on the scattering of white dots across Ranboo’s lower arm where there had definitely been none before. 

“You made that?” He asks next, trying for casual. Ranboo perks up and holds out his arm for inspection.

“Yeah! Last week. I wanted it to heal properly before I showed it off.”

It’s stars, dotted in white ink into black skin, forming tiny pointed stars with thin, delicate lines between them outlining a shape. Philza recognises it, and can’t help but laugh.

“Did you - is that the constellation I made up?” he asks disbelievingly. He can remember that night, curled up on top of Ranboo’s shack sharing bread and arguing about constellations. 

This one, he remembered, he named the ruler - a crown wrapped around a globe, a symbol of the being that once ruled a world but grew weary of the weight of its crown, and so created a new one to bear it while it went off on new adventures. It had been late, his fingers cold as they gestured towards the glittering sky. He didn’t think Ranboo would have kept track. 

Ranboo grins, proud and firm.

“It was a good evening. I wanted to keep it.” 

Something settles in Philza’s chest.

“Good choice, mate,” he says. “And good work on the lines, it looks like it healed over well.”

“I learned from the best, didn’t I?” Ranboo says, and Philza laughs again. He laughs so much, nowadays. It's strange.

He can't wait to get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Stargazing fic happening sometime soon, sooner if you feed me comments :D


End file.
